Vendetta

Her eyes darted to his face and the breath caught with a shock in her throat. There was a black patch over his left eye, a thin scar running vertically from his hairline to the top of the concealing inverted triangle and from beneath it down over his high cheekbone to the slanting plane of his cheek. The other eye was light brown, and Vivian’s gaze hastily skidded down, afraid he would think she was staring.

His mouth was thin and his face uncompromisingly square and deeply tanned, his thick, straight hair—wheat-gold at the ends and several shades darker at the roots—raked carelessly back from the scarred forehead by fingers and the wind, the shaggy ends brushing the upturned collar of his jacket. Darker gold glinted on the angles of the jutting jaw as his head shifted, revealing at least a day’s growth of beard. Even with the eye-patch and the scar he was good-looking, in a reckless, lived-in, don’t-give-a-damn kind of way.

Without speaking, he shouldered out of the hip-length jacket and she could see that its bulk had given her a deceptive impression of the man. He wasn’t really the behemoth he had first appeared. Although his wine-red roll-necked sweater moulded a fairly impressive pair of shoulders, and was stretched to accommodate a deep chest, his body narrowed to a lean waist and hips that indicated not an ounce of unnecessary fat. His legs were very long, the muscles of his thighs thick enough to strain the faded denim. His hands, as he tossed the discarded jacket effortlessly halfway across the room to land over the back of the couch, were strong and weathered. Big, capable hands. Capable of hurting…or healing, she thought, startled at the unlikely notion that came floating up through her sluggish brain.

He leaned back against the door, snicking it closed with a shift of his weight, bending his knee to brace the sole of a scuffed leather boot on the wood behind him, crossing his arms over his chest. Vivian forced her gaze to rise again, to discover that she wasn’t the only person who appeared to be shocked into a momentary trance. The single, brown eye was unblinkingly studying her, seemingly transfixed by the vivid aureole of hair surrounding her tense face.

Another man with conventional ideas about feminine beauty! She knew her own myriad imperfections well enough; she didn’t need his startled stare to remind her. As if the scalding brightness of her hair wasn’t enough, her green eyes had the garish brilliance of cheap glass, hardly muted by the lenses of her round spectacles, and a mass of ginger freckles almost blotted out her creamy skin.

Vivian’s left hand lifted to smooth down the springy ginger mane around her shoulders, and she smiled tentatively at him, flushing when he didn’t respond. A small freckled pleat appeared just above the gold wire bridge of her glasses, and she adjusted them unnecessarily on her straight nose, giving him the ‘tough’ look that she had practised in the motel mirror the previous night.

‘Well, well, well…the Marvel-lous Miss Mitchell, I presume?’

His voice was like silk drawn over rough gravel, sarcastically smooth with a rustling hint of hard, underlying crunch.

A voice used to giving orders. To being obeyed. No polite deference or preening arrogance here. Just utter authority.

Vivian clenched her hands behind her back as the unpalatable truth burst upon her.

She would have far preferred to deal with the civilised Suit! A Suit might be persuaded to sacrifice a small victory for an immediate, larger gain.

This man looked too unconventional, too raw-edged, too primitive ever to have heard of the words ‘negotiated surrender’. He looked like a man who enjoyed a fight—and had had plenty of them.

Looking defeat in the face, Vivian knew there was no going back. She had to try and beat him at his own game. But no one said she had to play it solely by his rules.

CHAPTER THREE

‘THE elusive Mr Rose, I presume?’ Vivian echoed his mocking drawl, hoping that she sounded a lot more in control of herself than she felt.

There was a small, challenging silence. He inclined his head, still studying her with the arrested fascination of a scientist confronting a new form of life.

Vivian smoothed her hands nervously down the side-seams of her skirt, and to her horror her fingers encountered the crumpled tail of her blouse trailing from beneath the back of her unbuttoned jacket. Somehow it must have worked free on that nerve-racking climb. Trying to maintain her dignity, she continued to meet his dissecting stare coolly, while surreptitiously tucking her blouse back into the waistband of her skirt.

He noticed, of course, and a curious flicker lightened his expression before it settled back into brooding aggression.

‘So…do we now blithely proceed from our mutual presumptions, or do we observe strict propriety and introduce ourselves properly?’

His murmur was rife with hidden meanings, and Vivian hesitated, wondering whether she was reading her own guilt into his words.

‘Uh—well, I think we know who we are…’ She closed her eyes briefly, cursing herself for her faltering of courage at the critical moment.

When she opened them again, he was metaphorically crouched in waiting.

‘I think, therefore I am?’ he said softly. ‘Very profound, my dear, but I’m sure Descartes intended his philosophy to be applied to something more meaningful than social introductions. However, far be it from me to contradict a lady, particularly such a highly qualified one as yourself. So, we have an agreement that I’m Nicholas Rose of Nowhere and you are Miss Mitchell of Marvel-Mitchell Realties. Welcome to my world, Miss Mitchell.’

He kicked himself away from the door and walked swiftly towards her, hand outstretched. Without looking down, she was aware that he limped. She was also aware of the savage pride in the single, glittering eye which effortlessly dominated her attention. It seemed to flame with a strange inner light, until the almond-brown iris was shot with blazing spears of gold as he came to a stop in front of her, closer than was comfortable or courteous, towering over her by at least six inches as he insolently invaded her personal space.

She accepted his proffered hand with a wariness that proved wise when the strength of his grip turned out to be even greater than she had anticipated. His hand wrapped almost completely around hers, trapping it as he extended the moment of contact beyond politeness into the realm of pure intimidation.

The calluses on his palm as he eased the pressure created a friction against her softer skin which felt disturbingly familiar. It was like the faint warning buzz she had experienced when touching a faulty electrical socket. Indeed, the very air around him seemed to crackle and carry a whiff of burning. It was as if there was a huge energy source humming inside him, barely restrained by flesh and blood.

He released her slightly maimed fingers, the gold flecks in his eye blowing with a strange satisfaction as she stayed stubbornly where she was, lifting her firm chin, refusing to be daunted by his superior size and strength, or by the unsettling reciprocal hum in her own bones.

Surprisingly, he was first to disengage from the silent duel, turning away to sling himself down in the chair at the desk, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He didn’t offer her a seat, just leaned back and regarded her in a way that seemed indefinably possessive. Vivian’s blood tingled in her cheeks and she adjusted her spectacles again.

His thin mouth curved cruelly. ‘Shall we proceed to the business in hand, then, Miss Mitchell? I take it you followed all the instructions in the fax?’

She thought of the tense drive down, the nerve-racking hours alone in the motel, the wallowing boat…and his helicopter. She set her teeth and nodded.

‘Truly a Marvel—an obedient woman,’ he punned goadingly, and Vivian’s flush deepened with the effort of controlling her temper. ‘And, knowing that your company’s successful purchase of my land depends on your pandering to my every annoying little whim, of course you followed those instructions to the letter, did you not, Miss Mitchell?’

This time she wasn’t going to chicken out. She squared her shoulders. ‘No. That is, not exactly—’

‘Not exactly? You do surprise me, Miss Marvel-lous.’

Nerves slipped their leash. ‘Will you stop calling me that?’

‘Perhaps I should call you Miss Marmalade instead. That would be a more descriptive nickname—your hair being the colour it is… That wouldn’t offend you, would it? After all, what’s in a name? “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”…’

His frivolity was definitely a trap, the quotation from Romeo and Juliet containing a baited message that Vivian could not afford to acknowledge without betraying her tiny but infinitely precious advantage.

‘As a matter of fact, there’s an awful lot in a name,’ she said, ignoring the lure. ‘Mine, for example, is Vivian Mitchell—’

Instead of leaping to his feet in justifiable outrage, he rocked his chair on to its back legs with his booted heels, his expression one of veiled malice as he interrupted her confession. ‘Vivian. Mmm, yes, you’re right,’ he mused, in that low, gratingly attractive voice. ‘Vivian… It does have a certain aptness to your colouring, a kind of phonetic and visual rhythm to it…razor-sharp edges springing up around singing vowels. I do have your permission to call you Vivian, don’t I, Miss Mitchell?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she bit off, his feigned innocence making her feel like a mouse between the paws of a lion. ‘But you requested that Janna Mitchell bring you the documents and co-sign the settlement. Unfortunately my sister couldn’t come, so I brought them instead. Otherwise, everything is exactly as you asked…’

‘She couldn’t come?’ he asked mildly. ‘Why not?’

Having expected a savage explosion of that banked energy, Vivian was once more disconcerted by his apparent serenity.

She moistened her lower lip nervously, unconsciously emphasising its fullness. ‘She has flu.’

Janna was also sick with guilt and remorse, and the combination had made her pathetically easy to deceive. As far as her sister or anyone else knew, Vivian’s prime motive for taking her place on this trip was her desperate desire to get away from everyone for a while.

‘Convenient.’

She winced at the flick of the whip. Not so serene, after all.

‘Not for her. Janna hates being ill.’ Her younger sister was ambitious. As a newly qualified lawyer, working in Marvel-Mitchell Realties’ legal department, she had a rosy future ahead of her, one that Vivian intended to protect.

‘Messes up those gorgeous ice-blonde looks, I suppose,’ he said, casting a sardonic look at her wild ginger mane.

Vivian froze.

‘You knew,’ she whispered, feeling momentarily faint. Thank God the masquerade had only been intended to get her inside the door.

‘The moment I saw you.’